A.N: Chapter rewritten from scratch. AU explanation given. Let me know what you think.

The City That Never Sleeps:

For everything to finally make some sense, I needed to reconstruct my identity in its entirety: a centuries-long slumber had left me wide gaps in my memory, black holes that spanned days, if not even weeks. Places. Encounters. Faces. Fleeting shadows of whom I could have only caught a glimpse of, my faulty memory preventing me to grasp them in greater detail. Add to that a notorious absent-mindedness in anything that my past-self wasn't directly concerned with: the end result is a frustratingly unreliable narrator, a big picture that lacks a wider context.

Sigh. I haven't always been like that. I suppose my past-self should be excused, given his young age at the time: I was merely slightly more than a boy after all, younglings are not supposed to possess the insight of an adult. It took a bloody war between my homeland Zanarkand and the city of Bevelle, the Machina War as it was later to be called, to start off that slow process that would have eventually made me the man who I am now. I used to be always cheerful, if a little oblivious of what happened around me. And then, when I eventually gained awareness of the grim reality I found myself into, I replaced my laughers with a peculiar sneer, pregnant with bitter sarcasm. I still maintained a somewhat fatalistic sense of self-deprecation and auto-irony, though: not even Time itself could really change who I am.

That reminds me: pretentious titles aside, I don't have a name yet. If I could, I would have chuckled within my stone prison for forgetting such an important detail. Nevertheless, this sudden realization tore down the last barrier that prevented me from fully reassembling my fragmented identity. My name is Shuyin Zaon. I am a Summoner of Zanarkand, I can wield magic and bend it towards my needs. Theoretically, I could have made awesome stuff happen via highly improbable means. More pragmatically, I had never managed to achieve anything outstanding in my early years.

Nothing suggested that my late years would be any different: nevertheless, the unexpected explosion of the Machina War was about to change all my beliefs. Drastically. As it often happens in politics, the motives behind the conflict were trivial: Zanarkand was already a powerful city, then High Summoner Yu Yevon came and turned it into a continental superpower; Lord Macarian of Bevelle, seeing his own city's interests at stake, declared war on us to eliminate a dangerous competitor. That was fine for Yu Yevon: in fact, hadn't Macarian preceded him, he would have done exactly the same, for victory in this conflict meant undisputed hegemony over Spira.

Naturally, our propaganda machine objectively depicted Macarian as the warmongering tyrant that he was; Bevelle wanted to oppress Spira, and it was up to Zanarkand to stop them through a just and righteous war. Such a misconception was as widespread among my fellow citizens as it was foolishly simplistic. Even now I am ashamed to think that I used to believe it. Little did I knew how much I was about to be disappointed.

City of Zanarkand, about a thousand years ago:

Ruins. War had made them such a common sight that I barely noted their existence anymore. And to think that Zanarkand was once proud of these useless, foul-smelling piles of rubble; former shops and bars where our youths used to hang out day and night. It was thanks to them that we were once renown as "The City That Never Sleeps" across Spira. Then war came and reduced us to a city that could never sleep.

No sign of the enemy yet, but the distant gunshots and screams of pain suggested an intense shootout. Somewhere. To put it bluntly, I almost had no idea about what was happening around me: the surrounding buildings limited my tactical awareness, overlapping echoes distorted the sounds, and I could barely see beyond the next heap of bricks. But all in all, my hindrances were next to nothing, if compared to the problems faced by Machinas: they weren't smart enough to move around in an urban center; they kept getting stuck among the countless piles of rubble. In fact, several of Bevelle's toughest Machinas could have been defeated by a simple flight of stairs!

Anyway, I remember wearing my favorite outfit, the only one that I liked to wear at all times; it consisted in a black, yellow and dark blue jacket with red and black square sleeves: the bare minimum I needed to be distinguished from common soldiers. Customized hand-made clothes, a display of rank and prestige, were a privilege accorded only to our most important Summoners; they were also well beyond my limited budget. A pair of black fingerless gloves, coupled with black shorts and long military boots completed my attire.

And then there was that sore spot in my not-so-brilliant career as a Summoner, my weapon of choice: a rounded sword with a dark-blue metal core that absorbed light; a one-of-its-kind weapon that had been finely tuned for me to use, it worked in all extents like any other magical staff, with the difference being that no true Summoner would have ever lowered himself with such an accursed item.

Not that either weapon would have actually made the slightest difference in a straight fight against Bevelle; I have yet to see an army as well-drilled and motivated as theirs. One brief, concise order was everything they needed to redeploy against their would-have-been assailants, a ragtag bunch of youths of which I was unlucky enough to be part of. And to gun them down in a single volley. Hadn't I had been near cover, they would've got me too. But at least I now knew where they were hiding.

I absorbed energy from my body, gathering it on my left fist; I formed a black sphere of pure energy, extremely volatile and dangerous. Without too much thinking, I threw this small orb inside the building where the enemy found shelter into. The following explosion was powerful enough to shake the ground, as the dismembered building crumbled on itself. An annoyingly thick cloud of dust entered into my lungs, making me cough. This trick of mine is called Impulse; it is not a true spell in the strict sense of the word, but rather a technique I have developed to unleash a great deal of non-elemental energy in a short amount of time.

Unfortunately, now the enemy knew that they were facing a Summoner, and they weren't going to fall for the same trick twice. In fact, as I discovered later, they had spread out so that a single spell couldn't have killed them all in one shot like their unlucky comrades, while they needed only one bullet to dispatch me. And honestly, nothing short of a Summoner could have ever been a serious threat to them. We could have seized back these now-worthless ruins through brute force eventually, but that would have resulted in a massive bloodbath. And what's the point of wasting good men when there are other, far easier and more satisfying solutions?

I had just made contact with the enemy. Before that, we weren't even certain that there were any within this neighborhood. And if common sense had taught me anything, there were other squads nearby. I could not see them, off course, but they had to be close enough to support each other in a firefight. Since fighting these soldiers on their terms was basically a death sentence, the only reasonable solution was calling for help: a magical flare flew over the enemy, exploding harmlessly above them and creating a sky-high fountain of sparkles in the process. They stood still for a second, unsure about what I was aiming at. As they realised what was about to happen, they began fleeing while screaming the ever popular "Run for your lives!"

And I would have done the same if I were them. Help came in the form of a mighty firestorm over their heads, thanks to our battle Summoners in the rear lines who had seen my signal flare and answered with some good heavy artillery fire. When the dust eventually settled, there wasn't much left of the enemy. Or the entire neighbourhood, for that matter.

I sat on a convenient heap of rubble to rest; as euphoria and an irrational sensation of invincibility began dissipating, I felt the first symptoms of tiredness over my body. We have won. Victory is ours, long live Zanarkand, and all that stuff. But then, why did I felt as if we had lost? Maybe because we had just fought an unimpressive skirmish, rather than the massive all-out assault I had been expecting. Bevelle must had just suffered the outstanding loss of about twenty men in this battle, whereas they had only several thousands more left in reserve. Today's death toll: too many. They are slaughtering us. How can we ever hope to win, if we keep suffering such unacceptable casualties?

"Shuyin. Are you all right? You seem ill." A well-known Summoner of about my age greeted me. She put her hand on my forefront to take my temperature, as if that were the source of my uneasiness. Since I was not feverish, she guessed my thoughts and squeezed my arm to cheer me up. That did the trick, I resumed breathing normally. Her innate ability to read me like an open book has never ceased to amaze me: she wore a black dress, along with a dark blue sash that wrapped around her neck and over her chest; she firmly held a staff in her right hand, with the symbol of Zanarkand embedded in a golden halo at the top; two separated kimono-like blue sleeves and a pair of brown hand-made leather shoes completed her outfit. If her look emphasised her predisposition for command, her brown eyes and her long brown hair that reached her back also underlined her cuteness.

She was my closest friend and, given my unfortunate peculiarity, the only girl I could have ever studied with. Unexplainably, I cannot focus my powers into anything more than destructive energy; any conventional spell I cast is pathetically feeble, and prone at wearing out at the worst times. Hadn't she been there to help me, my career as a Summoner would have ended even before starting: it was she who had found a workaround to circumvent this complication. As a pledge of friendship, she used her outstanding powers to craft my special sword, my only reliable connection to the realm of magic. An impressive achievement for a girl of her age, but that was well to be expected from the daughter of Yu Yevon. Her name was Lenne, and she was probably the greatest Summoner I have ever known.

"Hi Lenne. I was just being thoughtful." Dwelling on what had just happened was the last thing I needed; Lenne must have read my thoughts, because she immediately changed subject. "Have you heard the news? Father wants all Summoners in the Council Chamber tonight." That was an unexpected move from Yu Yevon; there weren't many decisions that the High Summoner couldn't take without the approval of his fellow Summoners. "Tonight? What's he up to? Did he told you?" "Nope. But it must be something important. Since the beginning of the siege, I have never seen father so involved in one of his projects. If I were to take a wild guess, I'd say he might have found a way to turn the war's outcome." As it turned out, she had assumed correctly, as always. And with the benefit of hindsight I wish she hadn't. "I hope you're right, Lenne. What could it be? A spell of some sort?"

"I don't know, and that's significant. I have never seen something like what he was working on; in fact, the theory behind it is far more complex than what a Summoner, no matter his age or rank, usually studies. Certainly it doesn't belong to any known magical schools." Old magic that is no longer taught or practiced, a perfect reciepe for potential disasters. "There's a reason why forbidden magic is called like that, Lenne. How do we know it won't blow up in our faces?"

As she often did, Lenne defended her father with a determination that verged on zealotry. "Don't be silly. Father would never endanger Zanarkand; he knows what he is capable of. Besides, he wouldn't have spent so much time in his project if he weren't completely sure of the result, don't you think?" In the end my concerns of a catastrophic failure were completely unjustified: if anything, Yu Yevon's plan worked out even too much effectively for my tastes. "That doesn't change that he is dealing with forbidden magic, though."

"He is the High Summoner! He chooses what is forbidden and what is not." Since convincing me otherwise seemed fighting a lost battle, she changed her tactics. "If you don't have faith in him, at least listen to what he will propose. If it turns out to be unfeasible, the other Summoners will vote it down; father cares about their opinion, he won't impose his decision. And they surely know what is better for Zanarkand than us." She had a point, and Lenne had no other needs to improve her rhetoric at my expenses, so I gave up. "Alright, alright, you have convinced me. I guess we'll have to see with our eyes tonight, then."